What every American needs to know about the riots in France

With so much happening in our own economy, it's tempting to overlook what's happening in economies abroad. And the way France has been demonized by Fox News, some people might think that the riots are a good thing. They probably are right, but not for the reasons they imagine.

Regardless how you feel about France, it's important to recognize that the riots are not a uniquely 'French thing.' Nor are they a marginal outbreak in a largely functional economy.

They are not, as the French Interior Minister would like the world to think, the work of

"thugs" and "hooligans" from the far-left and far-right, as well as young delinquents from the Paris suburbs, who he said had infiltrated the march in the capital.

Bullshit. These riots are more evidence of a widespread, ongoing, systemic problem; the natural and painful consequence of an unsustainable system based on monopoly, greed, and exploitation - just like the system we have here in the United States.

Between 250,000 and half a million people marched in 80 towns and cities across France in a show of force over a new youth job contract . . .

But, according to the Interior Minister, the ones causing all the trouble were

"a few hundred delinquents out looking for a fight"

Isn't it odd how every time someone dares to do something, other than wave a placard, they are labeled as outsiders, extremists, and generally considered pathological?

Police made 300 arrests overnight, two-thirds of them in central Paris, where gangs of youths - described as outside troublemakers - fought running battles with police, vandalising cafes and burning bookshops.Several hundred people overturned cars and hurled firebombs at riot police on the capital’s Place de la Sorbonne, as police repelled them with tear gas and water cannons, until calm returned early on Friday.

These protestors are angry and determined. But, what's all the fuss about?

[The new employment contract] allows all companies to hire employees under 26 for a trial two-year period, during which they can be fired at any time.

Naturally, French youth, who are already suffering from the highest unemployment rates in Europe (from 23% - 50% in some areas), are less than enamored by the measure, which essentially allows already abusive and exploitative employers to abuse a wider number of workers than they already do.

"They're offering us nothing but slavery," said Maud Pottier, 17, a student at Jules Verne High School in Sartrouville, north of Paris. "You'll get a job knowing that you've got to do every single thing they ask you to do because otherwise you may get sacked."

Some attribute the passage of this law to the influence of "powerful trade [unions which have] succeeded in protecting those in work at the expense of those kept outside the labour market."

Indeed, De Villepin defends the law, insisting that it's better than

labour reforms in neighbouring Germany which have cut unemployment and social security benefits and forced people into accepting low-paid jobs. The French scheme at least guarantees pay levels agreed through collective bargaining.

So in France (just like in America), government and corporations throw the ball in the union's court, which naturally pits union workers against non-union workers, and does nothing to improve the union's "bargaining power," which is minimal at best. Nevertheless, it gives the appearance of freedom.

But of course, we all know that the union is only half the story.

[In] France, as in Germany [and America], companies have been making record earnings . . . while cutting labour costs.

[German companies have] shed 300,000 jobs in the last five years - mainly to recover the competitiveness lost when the Deutsche Mark entered the euro at an over-valued rate and to restore their position as the world's leading exporter.

Instead they blather on with platitudes that leave people feeling helpless or feed into nationalistic fervor.

The reaction to his scheme [mirrors] the populist hostility to foreign takeovers in a country where one in seven works for an overseas firm and almost half the capital tied up in the Cac-40 index of leading companies is foreign . . .

Only by encouraging companies to take on more labour can this poor level of growth be improved.

So the new French law encourages companies to "hire more people" by firing others. Ingenious! Apparently, Americans are not alone.

But alas, even if this cockamamie scheme stays in place and bears some fruit, the Guardian admits that . . .

de Villepin [will] find its harvest diminished [read: devoured] by the monetarists in Frankfurt, over whom he has no control, [and who are set to raise interest rates] to 3% by the end of the year to stamp out a nonexistent inflationary risk.

The European Central Bank - the European equivalent of the Federal Reserve. Now, I know why all this sounds familiar.

12 Comments:

Company stores... Indentured servitude to the Corporostate. I really fear for the future of my children. It's going to take a lot of effort to enable them and themselves from becoming one of the squirming, inexorably state dependent masses.

French Demonstration Of Cultural Weakness: Can Be Treated--(Mighty Thor, 18 Mar 06)

Thanks much for more outstanding inductive evidence presented in outstanding blogging (journalistic) effort: Orwellian "perpetual war for perp. peace," now in reflection as demonstrated fm France. I understand it (French turmoil, rioting) was generated most fm DRUG GANGS connected with establishment who needed a diversion, somewhat like 9-11.

These economic tactics are typical of EMPIRE. We require a CULTURAL MOVEMENT rationalistic with religious applications/consequences CONSISTENT W. RATIONALISM. Thus in the Christian West, for example, we must lessen the "Sadducean" criminal conspirators and their influence as they collude with insane subjectivistic Jews-Talmudists who practice a religion of fraud and deliberate programmatic lies (fraud), like "holohoax" false religion imposed on gentiles at their expense (in more ways than one--see Zundelsite.org, ihr.org, codoh.com).

NECESSARY CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS REFORM--IN FAVOR OF GENERAL CULTURAL RATIONALIZATION: Hence the establishment "Christian"-styled traitors, who merely PRETEND to Christianity, led by such establishment frontmen as Falwell, Robertson, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, et al., must be exposed for traitors, agents, and conspirators they are--ESPECIALLY AMONG CHRISTIANS.

These traitors, "Judeo-Christians" (JCs) who support Israel, for example, and "voted" for Bush II, are the lowest among goyim as they allow themselves to be so treacherously duped in the name of "virtue," or whatever. They, these JC traitors, end in letting themselves be bribed (duped) by Mammonist empire colluding w. Jews and other sociopaths.

Thus again, the task is to RATIONALIZE the culture, including religion: "Judeo-Christians" (or "Sadduceans") among the gentile population must be held up as most fundamental, irrationalist problem, as they are subjectivist traitors to objectivistic Christianity properly understood, these JC heretics essentially a criminal, conspiratorial faction.

CONCLUSION: Practical (political) goal, of course (aside fm religious aesthetics), is to remove decisively the crux to Jew-JC-subjectivist criminal conspiratorial power, that "fractional-reserve banking"-counterfeiting (literally) fraud. (For expo on JCs, see Whtt.org; also ck JBS.org, and essays by "Apollonian" on NewNation.org, under "commentary.) Honest elections and death to the Fed. Thor

How do you people even manage to believe your own lies and inconsistencies? Oh I get it, just like the establishment does, brainwashing.

You folks need some real education... not the lies your "mentors" (read: brainwashers and abusers) "teach" you. Fucking pitiful, frankly, can't even tell the difference between lies and reality. watch this, for posting this, "Mighty Thor" is going to threaten with some lameass threat of "I know where you live" or "I'm gonna kill you!1!11" - which will prove my point. Uneducated.

Ok now people, back to the point please. This post is an excellent piece on what is going down in France and globally. The big French companies are making obscene profits while slashing jobs left , right and center.

The drive is the inane attempt to fill the vacant employment landscape with McJobs in the service sector and the new employment contracts are about creating a cheap labour pool of burger flippers. Europe is behind the US when it comes to labour malpractice, but its catching up fast.

The scary part is that the students who demonstrating are going to be too overeducated for the paltry jobs in the service sector anyway. With unemployement for the youth already at 26% the CPE is going to make very little difference. The real problem is globalisation and until we take back our economies we are all going to be disposable hirelings.

> Ok now people, back to the point please. This post is an excellent piece on what is going down in > France and globally. The big French companies are making obscene profits while slashing jobs left , > right and center.

> The drive is the inane attempt to fill the vacant employment landscape with McJobs in the service > sector

and yes, it isn't just France, it's all over the world. So, what do we do about it? ;)

Riots are an european thing and it is how we protect our dignity. I live in Greece and i ve been on many protests like that, frankly speaking in greece protests are 10 times powerful and frequent than anywhere else in europe. Some people in Brussels and in other decision making centre shall understand that we are not WILLING to sacrifice our quality of life to become slaves. 8 hours of work are more than enough. We need to establish a quality for living, to have holidays under the sun, look out our families, going out for beer and dinner and etc. that probably some people in the decision making centres probably want to erase from our daily schedule. YA BASTA!

"SimonRaven": Hey I just got back and found ur entries for which I thank u much--u're another hysterical Jew, I see. And yes, absolutely, u can call me "neo-nazi" all u pls, though in all truth I'm really a mere simple, humble Christian patriot, comrade.

And guess what?--this is a Christian land (the USA), and if u deny this u poor Jew, then it's u who should go to the nut-house.

Further, I've given u ample references as any scholar needs to do.

So if it's really "nonsense" I "spout," at least it's (Christian) honest which is more than I can say for a lying, stupid, brainlessly presumptuous Jew like u, Simon, old bean. (Are u really a Jew, Simon?--or are u gentile trying to make Jews look stupid?)

And "Simon" note it is mere matter of record it's u Jews who make the threats about "knowing where u live." It's Jews and Israelis who are the terrorists, murderers, criminals, conspirators, and as we see fm history, the real leaders of ORGANIZED CRIME IN THE USA as well as throughout the world. (See Michael Collins Piper's "The New Jerusalem.")

Hey Simon--what will u Jew criminals-conspirators do when ur fraud machine, the Fed, is abolished?--have to go looking for another nation-civilization to afflict, infiltrate, and exploit then, eh?--like from Spain in 1492, eh?

CONCLUSION: Thanks much dear "Simon" for another example of Judaic-Talmudic intellectualism, art, and journalistic information. Honest elections and death to the Fed. Thor

I have been reading for some time about the efforts by European governments to cut back social and welfare programs, educational assistance, unemployment assistance, and so forth from the socialists point of view. They've gone into some detail. This is a problem in Spain, France, Germany, Greece, and Britain, and elsewhere.

I think the government's rationale has been that in order for their companies to compete with the products produced cheaply in China, India, and south east asia in general, they really have to slash the cost of doing business.

I have been impressed with how theEuropean people, and the French, in particular, have gone into the streets to protect their standards of living.

Of course, they are not just concerned for their own personal vacation perks or frivolities. There are the old and sick and young and unemployed who are being gouged in this process.

I have been impressed because I don't believe Americans in anywhere the same numbers would take to the streets to protect anyone else's welfare checks, educatiuonal benefits, or labor contracts.

I want to agree that it's the 'globalization" process that has made all of this worse. Specifically, I want to say it's the toleration of slavery that allows companies based in China, India, etc that drives these attacks on living conditions, welfare, and so forth in Europe and the U.S. You can see all the manufacturing jobs have been transferred to places where people work for pennies a day, relatively speaking. Pretty soon service jobs and industries will follow. I've read where even costly surgeries and other medical care will be done in places like India where Doctors and other health care jobs can be done for cheap.

The problem is the vast differences in what people in these countries make, and what is done to keep them low paid.

The problem is that international trade allows companies to profit from slave labor at everyone else's expense.